


this day must suffice

by kinnoth



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Friendship, Gen, Politics, fixing canon because canon is bullshit
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-30
Updated: 2014-03-11
Packaged: 2017-12-30 17:45:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1021557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kinnoth/pseuds/kinnoth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malik was not in Masyaf when they burned the body.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Malik was not in Masyaf the day they burned the body. Altair had sent him away to Jerusalem -- against better sense, against Malik's own urging. 

"This is not a plan," Malik told him. He'd set his men at the castle gate, and he knew they would hold it until death, if necessary, but even from this distance -- the cliff-face, the courtyard, and the castle itself separating them -- he could hear the baying of the crowd, the cries for blood and justice. Malik gestured to the body still on the ground, though Altair's eyes had not left it since they'd turned their attention to it some moments ago. "You'll come out of the garden with their master's corpse in your arms, and then what will you tell them?"

Altair's shoulders were stiff, and there was an impatience to his voice, a dismissal to his manner that bit at the edges of Malik's good will. "The truth," he said. He held himself with an arrogance that might have stepped itself out from Malik's memory of him ten months ago, ten years ago, his superiority gathered about him like a veil. It would have drawn the heat of Malik's ire (would have cost him, perhaps, the fragile friendship that Malik had only just but offered) but that there was blood on his hands, blood on the old man's body, slick beneath their feet -- too much for the strike to the heart that killed him, when Altair had always killed clean. It had been one of the many things Malik had envied about him. 

Malik held back his sympathy like a stopped breath, because now was not the time, this was not the place. "What good is the truth from a liar's throat?" he asked instead. Altair bowed his head and bent forward at the knee. His blunt fingers plucked away a blossom that had fallen into the old man's face. Malik watched him crush it to his palm. Altair had had no need for exaggeration or braggary. He was the best of them and always had been, but Malik's point still stood. He told him plainly, "You were the Master's favourite but you've been nobody's friend. Altair," and, catching his eyes when Altair turned them away, pressed on: "I must stay. They will not believe you alone, but the two of us, with the same story--"

"Do you think they'll believe it then?" Altair looked up at him, past him, and the uncertain angle of his eyes was more unnerving than anything else Malik had seen of him thus far. "Even I don't believe it, and I was here to see it. I fought it," he said. His gaze fixed on the Piece of Eden where it had rolled into a flowerbed just off the flagstones, but still he spoke with all the unsettled vagary of a passing cloud. "All this for a piece of silver."

Malik chewed back his disquiet for the unhelpful thing it was. "Brother --" he said distractedly.

"Brother?" Altair rounded, and there was that sharpness Malik knew in him, snapped into sudden focus by surprise. "Since when in all the time we've known each have we ever called each other brother?"

Malik let out a noise of embarrassment. "Altair --" he corrected. 

Altair held his gaze. "Malik." 

Malik's laugh exploded from him, because Altair's chilly calm was laughable. "They will not believe you!" 

"They would not believe you either." Altair slipped his hands beneath the body, braced his knees as if to lift, but Malik closed the two steps around and hauled him to his feet.

"Why are you doing this?" he demanded, charging up the flagstone path, pulling Altair with him. Closer to the cliff-face now, the sounds carried on the din separated into distinguishable words. A chant rose up, clear syllables emerging: "traitor, traitor, traitor."

"You'll put it all to risk, put yourself to risk," Malik told him needlessly, because Altair could hear it too. "They want blood; brother, can you not hear them?" 

Altair tugged but did not break from Malik's hold, though it must have hurt, Malik's fingertips digging five-point bruises into the unarmoured flesh of his arm. "They want answers," he said evenly.

"So give them answers," Malik agreed. "Only make it something they can understand, something not," he gestured with his chin, "any of this."

Altair hid his face within his hood. "They should know the truth," he said, and Malik knew then that he could be right by every measure before man and god, but he would never win. 

"They will not understand the truth," he warned once more, and when Altair tugged this time, he released him.

"But they deserve a chance to try." Altair's right hand drifted across his wrist, but dropped back to his side before it could travel further. Malik grimaced and touched his hurt for him, though his apology was far from gentle. 

"Go to Jerusalem," Altair instructed quietly, and Malik would have bristled, but that he could not know if he would ever see this man again. "If you receive no missive from me within the month, then come back. Bring all the men you can raise and tell them what they want to hear then." He smiled wryly, the angle of it bisected by the beak of his hood. "You might blacken my name in place of our master's. You will need a madman."

"I have a madman," Malik shot back, but the bite of it broke upon the crackle in his voice. 

Altair picked Malik's fingers from his sleeve and held them. "We've been lied to for so long," he said. "It would be remiss to bury the truth again without at least trying to bring it to light."

So Malik insisted once again, "I will stay then." He shook Altair's hand emphatically. "I will help."

"No," Altair said and stilled him. "One of us must survive this."

"We may both survive this."

Altair shook his head. "Not with the both of us here." Malik took a breath there, at the ready to interject, but Altair cut him off: "Go, Malik. You know I'm right."

In that, at the very least, Malik knew he was. "Let me leave you my men at least," he urged. "They have some knowledge of what happened. They may be able to help."

Altair nodded. "Thank you."

Malik frowned and shook his head. "You must be sure that you do not--" He blinked. "And now you're thanking me." He peered up under Altair's hood, and huffed irritably, "First martyrdom and now courtesy?"

Altair smiled his doubtful little smile. "I must be addled in the head."

"Yes." Malik looked between them at two rough hands unused to giving comfort. "That must be it." 

Malik took the safe passage, a longer path but hidden, down the side of the mountain. The horse he rode was good, fast, a fine Arabian specimen from the master's personal stock. Clutched against its neck, Malik spurred it till they raced with the wind, but it was still too slow, still too little to escape the clarion timbre of Altair's voice, "I am not a traitor. My friends, brothers, put down your swords: it is not I who have betrayed you--" 

 

\---

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> altair sends malik away to inform jerusalem of al mualim's death, despite the fact that malik was the one guy UNCONDITIONALLY on his side at this point. never mind the fact that altair is more or less despised by his fellow assassins; never mind the fact that malik has their fellow assassins' respect. who sends away the one guy who is on their side, who has command over the people who don't like him, and who witnessed first hand controversial circumstances in which you killed your entire order's beloved grandmaster because he was crazy? ALTAIR APPARENTLY. you havin' problems with abbas, altair? THAT'S WHAT YOU GET FOR BEING STUPID.
> 
> this is an attempt to justify why.


	2. Chapter 2

Summer in Jerusalem clung to the air, caught on the breath and skin. Malik had, at one point, thought he'd maybe preferred it, for summer burned hot and close on the Syrian plains. He now found himself wistful for the heat, the clean touch of the sun, unmuddied by the wet vapor that rose out from the Mediterranean. But Altair had asked him to wait, to wallow out the month here while he busied his fool head in persuading their brothers, and so Malik was in exile. Limbo, he amended, for that was more accurate. His fate now rested with the beneficence of God (most gracious, most merciful). 

And with Altair, he supposed, though that belief lay less in faith and more in exasperation. May God provide that Altair simply busy his fool head and not also lose it.

Malik spent his days in correspondence, his nights in prayer and restless dream. Jerusalem was a city of ancient worth; its channels of influence were is vast and complex. As its dai, Malik held sway over all of the Order's sympathisers within the Holy Land. His pen was curt but courteous. His pigeons flickered tirelessly into the night.

Altair had asked for an army, and Malik would find one for him. The potters and merchants of Malik's dominion may not have been of fighting stuff, but they would supply coin, and coin would buy steel and men to wield it.

The year was 1191 and fighting men flocked to the city by the scores and dozens. Lives came cheap when men were paid to war. 

But Altair's month came and went with the heat, and still no word arrived. Summer lapsed into autumn; Malik's pigeons dwindled and then returned. He worried but did not fret, his plans clear to his own mind as lines on paper but for one point: he did not know how much longer to wait. 

He could not write to his brothers in Masyaf; he did not know who now controlled the citadel. Should his letter be intercepted, he would lose his hand. He could not simply march on the mountain. Altair may still yet live, and while he yet lived, there was some chance he could still persuade. Malik would not risk his friend's certain death at the first sight of purchased army. 

As the days cooled and shortened, Malik drew deeper into his seclusion, shutting all but the outer reception of his bureau to his own use. His supply of lamp oil dried up, so he read his maps by candlelight. One did not simply plan siege upon a den of silent killers. Malik's need for secrecy was greater than his need for sleep.

The solstice came and went, and word from Masyaf came at last, brought on the lips of a journeyman and his workpair frantic for sanctuary. Malik admitted them together with slow caution.

"We were on survey detail in Alamut," the journeyman gasped in between the gulps of watered milk that Malik had set out for them. "We were meant to stay two months, but we ran behind schedule, so Kamil went back first to report, and I stayed behind to finish our business." He looked to his friend, Kamil, who nodded but did not speak. 

The boy looked back to Malik and continued in a horrified tone, "When I returned, the fortress was barred. I had to climb the eastern cliff just to get into the village."

Malik nodded. "How did you come to travel here?"

The journeyman wiped his chin, his expression earnest. "Our mentor always said to go to Jerusalem in times of trouble." He dipped his head as Malik refilled his cup. 

"And what trouble is that?" Malik asked mildly.

The boy wrung his hands. "Our brother has gone mad," he says. His knee jittered where it rested against a cushion next to Kamil's. "He says we have strayed too far from our foundations, that it is only through a razing of our ranks that we may return to truth."

Malik sat back on his heels, humming his understanding. This he had expected. The Master's council was always going to be the hardest to convince. The men followed in faith, but it was the scholars who crafted that faith to follow. He asked the boy grimly, "What support does Altair see amongst the rafiqs and learned men?"

"Altair?" The grey cowl of his robes were splashed with yellow from the road, black from the milk. His face was dark and windburnt but sincere. "Altair is not the one from who holds the fortress. He walks amongst our brothers, preaching of restoration and preservation. No," the boy fidgeted anxiously with his cup, running fingers along the rim, "it is Abbas who seeks to return us to our asās."

This Malik did not expect. He knew that Altair faced opposition within the ranks of the brotherhood – or at least he suspected it, knowing nothing for certain – but he did know Abbas, or knew of him, in the very least. 

Abbas had come up ahead of Malik, two classes ahead of Altair. Malik had heard that the two of them bickered like crows at the gallows, but in that Malik could hardly cast blame: it was rarer than a prize mule at auction to have someone with whom Altair did not find fault. Abbas had always seemed rather reasonable in comparison: dutiful to their master, but without the sort of fanatical piety that had made Altair so off-putting. 

It was strange now to see those positions reversed: Abbas crying for fundamentalism while Altair championed moderation. Malik supposed, after some thought, that if anything, this bode well for Altair's credibility amongst the rank and file. 

"So Abbas controls the sanctuary and Altair the barracks?" The journeyman nodded. Malik could see now what had stayed Altair's call. Any further military presence at the fortress and he'd lose any hope of reconciliation. "How many has Abbas killed?" 

"Dai," the boy said. Malik glanced at him in alarm as his voice wobbled and broke. His eyes were wet. But before Malik could muster rebuke, the boy told him, "There are dozens dead. Any who do not renounce Al Mualim as a heretic and Altair as traitor are seized and executed."

This was troubling. Malik had reserved concern for Altair and his ability to tar the old man with a precise brush, to allow for mistakes and human fallibility while maintaining order and loyalty amongst the ranks. Abbas, it seemed, had no such considerations in mind, capturing with fear what Malik had hoped Altair could establish with reason.

"Dai?" the journeyman questioned. Malik nodded at him distractedly, but he watched the other boy, the spare, the one who'd come into his bureau and made his obeisance, but hadn't taken his milk. That one had been too quiet for too long. 

Malik asked, addressing the talkative one, his hand calmly reaching into his cloak, "Who sent you, journeyman?" Malik's knife hilt was tucked into the space where his elbow used to be. He grasped it lightly but grasped it all the same. The journeyman's face tightened with confusion and then realisation. Malik waited. He'd made too many assumptions already.

"Nobody sent us, dai," he said in careful syllables. "We came on our own." His dark eyes blinked and his cracked mouth pursed, and he glanced once at his workpair, but he would hold under threat of harm or death, Malik could tell. They were assassins, after all. 

"Surely Altair could use your support?" Malik's eyes searched him for hints of untruth. He recognised these boys; they'd novices under Kadar. He had watched them and their other friends practising their bladework in the courtyard, seen them at mess. He'd slept across the carpet from them in the barracks. He knew them, but then, he had also known Abbas. "He is your master now, after all."

"He is a heretic!" Kamil spoke at last, an eruption of sound and adolescent rage. He reached for his sword, but Malik was faster, ducking the draw, knife out of its sheath. Two steps forward, one step to the side, his blade quick in the air, quick against skin, quicker still to part Kamil's jaw from his throat. 

The traitor swayed a moment as the line of blood opened to reveal the inner workings of his neck. Then he gurgled once, stuttered, and fell back, hand still grasping at his neck as if it might staunch his wound. His head hit the wall with a wet crack.

Scowling, Malik kicked the body until the majority of it lay twitching upon the stones. The grouting between the cobbles filled quickly with blood, overflowing into one another but seeping toward the gutter beneath the fountain. Malik's carpet was mostly saved.

The remaining journeyman sat agape, jug of milk still quivering between his hands. "Dai," he said. His face was splattered with gore. 

"Hm?" Malik bent to search through the corpse's things. Pouches of herbs and medicines. The boy didn't even carry throwing knives.

"I didn't know," the journeyman stammered. "He was-- I'm sorry, dai. How could I?"

There, that, several small vials of pale and separated liquid. Then in another pouch, a little clay pot of viscous smudge, the consistency of something to be tucked beneath the tongue and swallowed slowly. Malik pocketed them and continued his search. "You didn't know because you did not see. You did not see because you were not looking. Vigilance, novice," he reminded the boy, glancing back behind his shoulder. "Always vigilance."

The journeyman put down the jug, standing on uncertain feet as Malik stepped around the blood-spill and made his way back into to his office, "I am not a novice, dai," the boy reminded him shakily. 

"No?" Malik had a bit of testing paper left; he hadn't much use for it, during his incumbency, and had never bothered to resupply. Medicines were never his niche; he let Jabal in Akka do most of his mixing for him. "You will be a novice again soon enough, if I have a say in anything. What is the first thing we learn, boy, when we enter our Order?"

The journeyman replied, his voice coarse, "To watch."

"That's right: to watch." Malik scooped a bit of the smear from the pot and blotted it across the paper. The smell of spiced and bitter herb filled the air. "Have you learnt that lesson to the fullest?" He held the paper up to the candleflame and kept it there til it caught. The fire burnt bright blue. "Do you know it so well you can teach it to others?"

The journeyman went quiet. "How did you know?" he asked after a moment.

"He did not drink my poison," Malik said. He dipped paper into the liquid next and burned it. It flared red as balefire, then flaked away into little smudges of ash. Malik batted them off his worktable with the back of his hand. "He was warned." 

The journeyman startled. Then his face went pale. Malik shrugged. "Do not worry, journeyman. There is an antidote for this little trick." He tossed the clay pot into the journeyman's chest. The boy fumbled, surprised, but caught it. "Your friend carried this with him," Malik said, and added, "There is dose enough for two in there."

The boy looked down at his hands, fingers rubbing over the smooth sides of the pot. Malik appraised him watchfully. No flicker of either doubt or regret passed over his face. 

"How much should I take, dai?" he asked, lifting the lid. His face screwed. It was a foul smelling concoction. 

"Enough to cover the the back of your front teeth," Malik told him. 

The boy nodded and did as he was told. His face curdled like cheese, but he swallowed it down. "How long til it works?" he asked, mouth smacking.

Malik handed him a cup of clear water from his own jug. "Until what works, novice?" 

He drank the water down, gratefully. "The antidote, dai."

Malik let one corner of his mouth lift. "That was a linseed poultice."

The journeyman started. "But the poison--"

"My poison ran dry weeks ago, novice." Malik adjusted the weights on the corner of his map and sat back down in front of it. "You and your workpair were not the first assassins that have been sent for me."

The boy protested with a step into Malik's direction, "Abbas did not send me--"

"No." Altair still lived, then, if the boy was to believed. He was, Malik allowed. He'd been tested enough. "In that, you are the first." 

He looked down at his map again but nothing had changed. He was in Jerusalem and Masyaf was far away. Malik knew the reasoning behind it, knew it was to give him safety, to give him time, but all he could do was redraw lines on the map, trying to close the distance. 

"Dai," the boy said after a moment. Malik looked up at him. "There was something else."

Malik leaned his head forward on his hand and considered him. He supposed it was worth hearing why this boy had shown up when he did. "What is your name, journeyman?" he asked.

The boy hurriedly swept off his hood and bowed his head. "Usman ibn-Aman, dai."

"How old are you?"

"I turn fifteen next winter, dai."

Malik made a disgruntled noise. "You are young to have been promoted," he opined uncharitably. "What feat of skill or cunning earned you that?

"Just this, dai." Usman's fingers fumbled into his sash and pulled out a folded square of paper no bigger than a thumbnail. "The master gave me a rank to deliver this to you."

"The master?" Malik took the note and unfolded it distrustfully. 

"Excuse me, Master Altair."

Malik simply raised his eyebrows.

Usman flustered but steeled himself. Malik supposed that was admirable. "Altair found me before I left for Jerusalem. He told me to say nothing of him or his message to except privately to you, dai."

"Hm." Malik held the paper up to the light. "Altair is merely master assassin," he remarked idly, turning the scrap over. It was unmarked. "He does not have the authority to give rank, journeyman. Surely you know that?"

"Yes, dai, but in the event that the Order is left without a master, our ranking brother takes up the master's rights and duties."

"How many still hold to this?" The paper held a distinctly sour scent, like citrus, when he brought it to his face.

"Fewer each day, dai."

Squinting, Malik thought he could perhaps see markings like words. Moving it closer to the light, next to the candle flame, and there. There, that was it. Lemon water letters. Malik's mouth grimaced into a smile. Altair was a child. 

The paper heated through, and the words written on it made themselves known. _Help,_ said Altair through his blocky inelegant script. _I leave it to your judgment how._

"Rest quickly, journeyman." He had contingencies to run, money to collect, captains to pay. "We leave at sunrise."

Usman approached the workbench but Malik waved him back. The boy was eager but unsteady on his feet. He'd need whatever time Malik could give him for food and sleep. "Are we going back, dai?" 

"Yes." The sun burned low in the sky, and Jerusalem sighed into autumn. Malik stood and gathered his plans about him. He was going home.


End file.
